


Six Hundred Eyes, Three Thousand Fingers, One Beating Heart

by Hino



Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Clone hivemind, Gen, I am taking creative liberties and having fun, I believe in the hivemind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25165183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hino/pseuds/Hino
Summary: Doctor Coomer has clones. He can feel everything they feel.That's a lot for one person to feel.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 76





	Six Hundred Eyes, Three Thousand Fingers, One Beating Heart

Doctor Coomer has clones. Over three hundred, although that's where his mind starts to overload. After all, seeing three hundred different perspectives of the Black Mesa can be disorienting, and there's only so much the human mind can handle.

Is he human, he wonders sometimes.

The good doctor does not dream. After all, when he himself is asleep, the rest of his clones are awake, doing the night shift or winding down from a long day. His nights are filled with the things they see, and when they speak, sometimes his own lips move in a mockery of their words.

Ah, words. He doesn't know which ones he's saying these days. The vibrations in his throat and his tongue against teeth show what he might be doing, but as for complex sentences, he's as lost as can be, his ears hearing the world around him amplified three-hundred fold.

Ten fingers on his hands hold an blanket and feel its texture.

Ten fingers on a clone's hand hold a rock and feel its texture.

Ten fingers on another clone's hand hold burning glass and feel its texture.

Three thousand fingers hold objects and Coomer can no longer tell what he is holding and whether he likes it.

But all their hearts beat in unison. Like the kick of a bass drum through speakers at a concert. It slams into his chest with such force that it reminds him that he is alive and connected, part of a hivemind whose senses filter through him, whose thoughts enter his own and become so entangled with his own concepts and ideals that he stumbles and trips over himself when speaking.

It makes him stick to repeated phrases, looping words and ideas that are easy to define among the resonating voices that echo in his mind and block his ears from hearing reality.

So when Black Mesa crumbles and the Resonance Cascade begins, destroying the facility and taking out a good handful of clones, there's a difference, even if he can't see it. 

It's still more than three hundred clones, more than six hundred eyes witnessing carnage, but his head is quieter and the bass kick of his heart is easy enough that he can breathe without struggle. His cybernetics whir softer, no longer fighting against the influence of so many clones.

And when the murderous habits of his coworkers: Doctor Bubby, Doctor Tommy, Doctor Freeman, and Benry, when they rise to the surface in desperation and freedom and adrenaline, taking out a clone without hesitation, when that bullet tears through the body of his doppelganger and yet himself, and it brings pain that is fleeting and then a bliss that is eternal,

That is when Doctor Coomer knows what to do.

"My power grows!" he cries as he guns down a fragment of himself, taking the pain of dying and packing it away as a reminder of who he is and what he's doing and what he will become.

He knows that in the end it will be bliss.

To turn Six Hundred Eyes and Three Thousand Fingers into Two Eyes and Ten Fingers.

And to turn One thunderous bass kick of a heart into a gentle little rattle in his chest.


End file.
